Multitasking

Multitasking- doing several things badly at the same time

Lotus June2014

Nettie

Nettie was my father's mother. She was the backbone of the family and held them together through the roughest time in American history. She and Tom married in twenties and had children in time to face the great depression and World War II. Nettie was a force to be recognized and generally ruled with a strong hand. She had little time for idleness or stupid people. She taught me many things. How to play Canasta ; how to hook a rug; how to hang wall paper and how to make a good tasting meal when you had very little to work with. Because of her experience in the depression she was extremely careful with money. Long after my grandfather died, when she was well over 80, she drove the oldest car in town . It was a prewar Dodge. I think, and the antique box shape made it very easy to spot. She wore her hair in bun and I only saw her once with it down. I was amazed when I realized that her hair extended well below her waist. Those days when times were hard, people did things that we now consider cruel. But as was common practice for people with poor teeth, Nettie had each child as they reached maturity have their teeth pulled and fitted for dentures. There were no more dental bills. Nettie had a good heart and would give anyone in need what she could. She was a major element in my education.

  

 

 

My brother and his wife celebrated

50 years of marriage. An amazing accomplishment in today's world.

The Wrong Word

I am bother by the direction of the language and new words that have emerged that don't really mean anything. "like" is the most obivious.  But how about Proactive. How can that be a word? You are either active on not. Very active: not so active : inactive  but Pro ?

What is the opposite of Proactive? Propassive ?

Does thar mean that you are passive to an extreme ? can you be a little passive?  very passive? inpassive:

Propassive?

I wonder if anyone else has these relatively unuseful thoughts?

Tom

My father's father was Tom, but he was known to every one in the family as Pap. Tom was a master mechanic and worked for many years for the local Ford dealership. It was said the he assembled the first motel T in the county.In those days they shipped cars by train to the dealers in crates and local assembly was required. He walked across town to work and back with his lunch in a tin lunch pail. When he came home in the evening, he was usually covered with grease and oil.  He would spend as long as it took in the bathroom to come to dinner in a clean shirt,shaved and completely scrubbed of any trace of the garage. I remember his long leather strop for his pair of beautiful pearl handled straight razors. His long cleanup sessions were a constant annoyance to my grandmother, Nettie. But there was nothing that would speed his arrival at dinner until he was ready.
Tom was a baseball fan and listened to every game on the radio. He died too young (in his late 60s), probably as a result of breathing unvented exhaust fumes for many years.

Good people

GOOD PEOPLE
 I was lucky to grow up in the company of all four of my grand parents. With my father absent, they became, along with my mother and brothers, my immediate family. All four were born around 1900, give or take a few years. They married and had children in the 1920's, lived through the Great Depression in the 30's and sent their sons to the World War in the 1940's.  The Depression and the War had a deep and lasting influence and by the 1950's they were old by the standard of the times. My mother's parents lived in the country and fared somewhat better than my father's parents who live in the city. It was a good time to have a small farm. Although I didn't realize it at the time, we were all rather poor. For all of their problems I don't ever recall any anger or unhappy times with the grandparents. They were the most consistently positive people I have ever known. They along with a large group of aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors lived their lives and were for the most part generous and warm and happy. They were the best people I was ever to know. They were good people.